When the cafeteria was re-fashioned as the Distinguished Dragon Café a few years ago, it was done so in the spirit of providing students a relaxing, restaurant-type atmosphere for eating lunch.  We work students hard during the day so they can achieve as much as possible academically.  Therefore, they enjoy and need the social interaction they get at lunchtime.

Of course, it’s also necessary to maintain order by limiting inappropriate behaviors and keeping noise to an acceptable level.  Considering that there are times when we have over 130 students in the cafeteria at once, it can be challenging trying to find that line between order and chaos.

Ideally, we want to teach students how to monitor their own noise level.  To help with this endeavor, we’ve installed a device called the Talk Light.  It contains a sensor that continually monitors ambient noise.  If it reaches a certain threshold, the light will switch from green to yellow.  If the noise continues to rise, the yellow light will begin flashing which signals students that it is about to turn red unless the noise level decreases.  If the noise level fails to decrease, the light will turn red and an audible alarm will sound.  At that time, assistants enforce a no-talking time (generally a minute or so) until the red light resets to green.

It has taken some amount of tweaking to find the thresholds that seem to work best for us.  The Talk Light is helping create a consistent expectation for acceptable noise levels within the cafeteria, which should make it a more pleasurable dining experience for everyone.